Budget bumps, popsicles and postponed charter changes dominated the lengthy Albuquerque City Council meeting May 20. In the end, a $1.4 billion budget was approved for fiscal year 2025.
Budget Ups and Downs
A big chunk of the five-plus hour meeting was spent working out the dollar details. After a couple of hours of discussion between the council and administration, Chief Administrative Officer Samantha Sengel handed out popsicles continuing a city budget tradition started by her predecessor Lawrence Rael.
A big ticket item was the reorganization of some employees who work for departments but are also under the purview of the mayor’s office. These include some parks and recreation employees who will now be under the chief administrative officer. An additional $3.5 million was added to the administration’s budget of $3.1 million to handle the new employees.
There were no changes to the proposed $271.5 million police budget, the $17.9 million community safety budget or the $119.9 million Albuquerque Fire Rescue budget.
The BioPark and library services came out as winners.
Councilors approved a $500,000 bump for the BioPark to go toward taking care of all the living things — more than twice the amount requested by staff and the public after $200,000 was left out of the mayor’s proposed budget. The library also received $400,000 back in the budget. Councilors eliminated fee increases for the city’s swimming pools and raised municipal golf green fees by $1.
Read more about the fight to get funding for library technology back in the budget here.
Read more about the proposed fee increases to pools and golf courses here.
About $1 million in funding for housing vouchers was left out of the budget. When questioned about putting the funding back, Health, Housing and Homelessness representatives talked about the amount of time it takes to get voucher money out the door. City administrators said it can take up to 200 days for a person to work through the process and get placed in housing — and that is if housing is available. Because of this, not all the funding allocated is used in one year and is subject to being reverted.
Also included was $400,000 in funding to use to match federal Medicaid or Medicare resources to create a pilot program that will offer wrap-around services for individuals with psychiatric and/or substance abuse disorders.
It’s Complicated
After hours of amendments, councilors deferred several city charter changes until the next meeting.
One major proposal is to change the requirement that a mayor or city councilor have at least 50% of the vote or be subject to a run-off election. The proposed change states the winner would need at least 40% of the total vote.
The other proposals involve changing the procedure for the appointment and removal of the city attorney and city clerk; allowing the City Council to remove the police chief and fire chief and changing the procedure to resolve disputes between the executive and legislative branches regarding their respective duties.
If approved, the proposed changes would be sent to the voters in November.
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